Labor’s dominance
of Queensland’s
Parliament in recent
years ended at thepolls on 24 March 2012.
Its first preference
vote fell to 26.6%,
compared with 49.7% for
the Liberal National
Party, 11.5% for Katter’s
Australian Party -
which lost its court challenge
over its abbreviation on
ballot-papers
- and 7.5% for the
Greens. Labor was
reduced to just seven
seats compared with
seventy-eight for the
LNP, and two each for
Katter’s Australian
Party and long-standing
independents. An
independent’s loss to
the LNP in Maryborough,
by only 86 votes, seemed
the only case of luck of
the draw for
ballot-paper places.

Informal voting under the
optional preferential rules remained low
at 2.1% statewide. Labor, LNP and the
Greens endorsed a candidate in every
electoral district.

The Katter’s
Australian Party stood candidates
in 76 districts and Family First
in 38.In total, 430
candidates nominated. In the 89
electoral districts, voters had
a choice in 5 districts of three
candidates, in 29 districts of
four, in 36 of five, in 15
districts of six, in 3 districts
of seven, and in 1 district of
eight.

Whereas Labor’s
ascendancy had long been due to
domination in the Brisbane
metropolitan area (the Liberals
were reduced to a single seat
there in 2001 and only had nine
when briefly part of Coalition
government after the court-ordered
Mundingburra
by-election of 1996), it won just four
seats there this time.

After the decision
by Queensland’s former Premier,
Anna Bligh, to quickly leave its
Parliament, a by-election in South
Brisbane was set down for 28
April, the same day as for
periodic municipal elections.

The decision
of the Electoral and
Administrative Review
Commission to narrowly
recommend against
proportional
representation for State
electionsin 1990 has now
been shown to regularly result
in lopsided parliaments that do
not reflect levels of voter
support either overall, or at a
broad regional level.

The LNP gained nearly
half the votes on this occasion, so it
would have won a clear majority under
quota-preferential arrangements in
multi-member electorates, while
sufficient MPs with other pedigrees
would have been elected in all parts of
the State for local political
competition and vigorous scrutiny of
policies and actions to occur throughout
the current term.

ACT 20th Anniversary Radio
Interviews

To mark the twentieth
anniversary of theresounding
two-thirds vote for Hare-Clark at a 1992
plebiscite, PRSA’s ACT
Branch issued a media
release highlighting
many of the subsequent benefits to
voters: a good choice of candidates in
each electorate, with no-one
guaranteed a safe seat, as Robson Rotation is in
operation; demonstrably fair results
particularly in the seven-member Molonglo
electorate; and the expeditious
filling of casual vacancies via countback.

Resultant interviews
on the ABC’s morning program and
commercial talkback radio’s afternoon
show on 15 February 2012 allowed
positive messages about voter
empowerment and demonstrated ability
to individually and collectively make
key choices to be widely shared as
interviewer’s or listeners’ questions
were answered.

The Legislative Assembly’s
Standing Committee on Administration and
Procedure has initiated a review of theAustralian
Capital Territory
(Self-Government) Act 1988. Currently,
that federal legislation specifies 17
MLAs and at most five ministers, and
permits changes to the former number
only after passage of a suitable
Assembly motion of request.

It also sets a maximum
10% tolerance from the overall
Territory average in elector-to-seat
ratios when a redistribution is
undertaken, which the Territory’s Electoral
Act 1992
takes further with maximum
anticipated election-day
discrepancies limited to 5%.

The federal
legislation also specifies the
circumstances in which ACT
legislation may be entrenched
through support at a referendum by
a majority of electors (whether or
not they vote, let alone formally
– in practice, nearly 60% of the
latter).

The key Hare-Clark
principles, along with Labor’s
additions of compulsory attendance
and special procedures for
changing Assembly numbers should
that power be transferred, were
entrenched following passage by a
16-1 majority of the Proportional
Representation (Hare-Clark)
Entrenchment Bill 1994 and
support of nearly two-thirds of
the electors voting formally on 18
February 1995, yielding its enactment.

Only through a
two-thirds Assembly majority or a
majority of electors voting at
referendum can electoral legislation
containing provisions at variance with
the entrenched principles come into
effect.

Major NSW Local Government
Changes

Following the March 2011
change of government in New South
Wales, the new
Local Government Minister, Don Page, has
embarked on a wide range of reforms and
reviews, including changes to electoral
legislation and intensive work positioning
local government to meet the challenges
expected over the next twenty-five years.

Key strategic
directions and action plans have been
developed under the Destination 2036
initiative. A three-memberLocal
Government Review Panel will
investigate and identify options for governance
models, structural arrangements and boundary
changes before 2014.

Through
the Local
Government Amendment (Elections) Act 2011,
choices over the running of elections were
restored to councils rather than having these
automatically under the control of theNSW
Electoral Commission. Unsurprisingly,
just 15
councilsdecided to take
responsibility for the September 2012 poll
rather than seek to enter into a service
agreement with the Commission. The
responsibilities involved and the limited
scope for piggybacking onto Commission
arrangements or facilities were set out
clearly in newguidelines
for council-administered elections issued in
September 2011 by the Division of Local
Government.

After
future periodic elections, councils will have
twelve months in which to decide whether they
wish to use the services of the Electoral
Commission for elections, polls and
referendums until the end of the four-year
term.

The
legislation also opened up a five-month window
ending on 30 November 2011 in which councils could
resolve to abolish ward boundaries
entirely (this would mean a change to
proportional representation wherever
single-councillor or two-councillor wards had
exclusively applied, as in Guyra Shire and
Cabonne), and - as seven councils did - could
resolve to reduce their future numbers
without holding a municipal constitutional
referendum.

Circumstances
in which casual vacancies need not be filled
were extended, including to possibly eighteen
months before periodic elections, but
unfortunately the much more representative
approach of requiring automatic countbacks
in such instances was not taken up, even as an
option.

Separately
- after issuing a discussion
paper - the O’Farrell Government managed
to have the
law changed to prohibit dual council and
State parliament membership after September’s
elections, after gaining Christian Democrat
and the Shooters and Fishers Party
MLCs’ support on 3 April 2012. It
stressed similar prohibitions that apply in
all mainland States. The plight of Cr
Clover Moore MLA, the Lord
Mayor and Member
for Sydney, gained the most attention,
but twenty-nine MPs currently have dual roles.

Work has also continued on
establishing a new Model Code of Conduct
with more flexible procedures for handling
complaints, and the development foreshadowed
of a new NSW Intergovernmental Agreement
dealing with core functions of councils and
joint responsibilities of local and State
governments.

After
consulting the community and relevant councils,
the panel, in its Final
Report of October 2011, recommended a
single City of Greater Hobart, initially with
wards, be formed from current urban areas, and
rural arrangements not be altered until their
special needs can be reviewed in more detail and
changes be made, including mandated sharing of
some resources and contracts with urban areas.

The
panel recommended that general elections every
four years replace the present staggered
four-year terms of councillors where half face a
poll
every two years, and that mayoral
candidates not need prior council
experience. It was silent about deputy mayor
polls, but advocated compulsory voting to
encourage more mainstream candidates and for
more democratic accountability.

In
coming to its primary conclusion about
boundaries, the panel put emphasis on carving
out a stronger voice for Hobart residents within
State structures, and more effective strategic
and land-use planning. The panel did not think
that emphasis on greater co-operation and shared
services under current boundaries offered much
hope of significant improvement in efficiency.

While
the Report pointed to high levels of public
support and councillor co-operation, it remains
to be seen whether supportive groups, such as Tasmanians for Reform,
can build a climate to effect change in the near
future.

The
Mercury in Hobart also reported the Premier,
Lara Giddings, saying
in January 2012 that the House of Assembly
should be enlarged to 35 members when economic
conditions improved, but no legislation could be
expected this year. The Greens agreed, saying
Tasmania had suffered from the major parties’
collusion to reduce numbers in 1998, but the
Liberal Opposition Leader, Will Hodgman, claimed
such priorities were about saving the Premier’s
skin, and showed how out of touch she was with
public opinion when services were being cut.